


With all the future ahead of her

by basaltgrrl



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:59:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basaltgrrl/pseuds/basaltgrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I had the great privilege of writing a Pern fic for yuletide!  I wish I had had time to write a longer piece, but this gave me the opportunity to explore some ideas that have been percolating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With all the future ahead of her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lanerose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanerose/gifts).



When Robinton was writing music, he could feel the song in his bones, in his blood. That urgency set his hand in motion, pushing the stylus across the sand table, the tune running through his mind at a pace with the notation. Sometimes he could hear entire choirs and gatherings of musicians while at other times he might hear just a snatch of melody and have to struggle to flesh it out, to match harmonies to the bare promise of a song. 

In this instance he had begun with a concept; the advent of new things, new discoveries. The people of Pern had a lot to adjust to lately, after the years of fighting thread and the struggle to accept the Oldtimers in their midst. There were so many people in this land who struggled with these changes; his duty as Masterharper to ease their worries, fight against their prejudices. 

He sighed and leaned back, rubbing his lower back with one hand. It was a good song. Perhaps not as inspired as one of Menolly's--now there was a discovery indeed, a blessed astounding discovery that he still marveled at even after three years of her acquaintance. Her brilliance, his advantage. And what a sweet girl, so gentle, so talented. How much he missed her. She would have had no trouble writing a song on this subject. She'd lived through so much of it herself...

Zair chirped from across the room, taking wing just long enough to land on the windowsill where he chittered excitedly. Robinton had a quick burst of images, a whirling fair of firelizards, their delighted swoop and dive, and a momentary spread of huge wings--a dragon as well? And then an image that made his heart leap painfully for a moment; a dark head of curls, a lanky woman sliding down the bronze leg of a dragon, a gitar strapped to her back--

"Menolly!" he gasped. He didn't leap to his feet--Manora would be proud of him--but stood and stretched his aching back for a moment, then walked to the broad sill and leaned out, staring up into the empty evening sky. Not yet, but...

And then there were dragons, dark shapes against the blue. A bronze, two blues, hovering for a moment and then winging in. Zair stroked his head against Robinton's hand, trilled an eager note, then launched himself into the air, angling to join the fair of Menolly's firelizards who fluttered in the dragons' wake.

Moments later the three dragons landed neatly in the courtyard, and suddenly the Harper Hall was abuzz with reaction. The riders slid down, helped their passengers to make a more decorous descent. Firelizards danced in the sky, and the usual Fair of the Hall made it a hurricane of flight and delighted creeling.

"Menolleeee!" Figures burst out of the hold doors below, running across the field toward the newcomers. Piemur raced in their lead. He flew across the field, his short legs churning in a blur, and hit her lanky form with a thud Robinton could hear from his vantage point.

He grinned to himself, but made no move to leave the window. There was time enough. She'd greet her friends, get herself settled, and when the time was right she'd show up at his door. Still he lingered, watching as the knot of people dispersed, as Menolly and Piemur made their way out of his line of sight toward the doors of the Harper Hall.

***

As it turned out, it was hours later and the sun was just a glow in the western sky by the time her firelizards preceded her into his rooms.

Oh, he had seen her before that moment, had hugged her hard to him and whispered how glad he was to have her back, had watched her in the dining hall while she ate with her usual delicacy. Had watched as Talmor leaned companionably against her shoulder, joking and talking with the ease of those who had spent days on the road together. He wasn't jealous. He really wasn't; he  
had a busy life here in the hall, and more work than he needed at his age. But he loved this girl, this absurdly talented girl, and he wanted her to do well. She and he both had obligations and people to see before they could sit together and properly talk about her journeying.

And now at last she was here, and he had nothing else to do with his time but sit with her.

"Master," she said with a smile, and crossed the room to hug him again, squeezing until his bones creaked.

"Have pity on an old man," he chided. "You'll break something, and Zair will have to fight you off."

"You're not so tender as all that." She let go and stood back to look him up and down. "You don't look any older, but I feel like I've been away forever."

He grinned. "Ah, youth." He busied himself pouring wine for both of them, then handed her a glass. "It is so good to have you back, m'girl." He toasted her.

"And it's good to be here again." She looked around with a sigh of contentment. He gestured to his comfortable chairs and they both settled in. She seemed almost boneless with it, the kind of instant relaxation that only the young could achieve. But not as young as she had been; although it had been less than a turn, he could read the stress of it on her face, the faint lines of frowning, or squinting into the sun.

"Now is not the time to go into detail, but--how did it go? Was it everything you wished for?"

She smiled wryly. "Well. I guess I got everything I expected. I hoped--but I should have been more realistic."

"You survived, anyway. And you wrote some lovely new songs."

"Oh, I'm so glad you got them!" 

"I particularly liked the melody on the one--the walking one. So sad, though. You lost your usual sense of optimism."

"Had it beaten out of me."

"Beaten?"

She snorted. "Not literally. I look fine, don't I? It was just... hard. I couldn't have anticipated how hard, how much people wouldn't look to me."

"And there was no way to send you with another woman; you're the first we've sent journeying since... I'm not even sure. Did you and Talmor get along?"

She nodded, but looked out the window pensively. 

"How can so many people be so stubborn?" she exclaimed.

He crooked an eyebrow.

"Does every man want to hunt, or fight, or ride dragons? No! So why, then, do all men seem to think that every woman wants to cook, or clean or raise babies? We're just as able as any of them! Why haven't more girls been Chosen by dragons, besides Mirrim? Why aren't they ever put before the dragons? It doesn't make sense."

Robinton took a sip of wine, then a larger gulp. Ah, so this was going to be that sort of conversation--and perhaps it had been that sort of journeying. He didn't envy Menolly a bit--well, maybe her youth, her vigor and effortless creativity. But not her fair of firelizards, not now that he had his own experience with the joy and effort of it. And not her role, or her chafing.

"I admire you, you know." She shot him a glance, a hint of the shy, wild creature in it. "I do. You've never backed down, not to your father and not to old diehards like Morshal, and not to me, either. I don't think you'd back down to F'lar and Mnementh if they showed up on your doorstep!"

"Dragons--" she began, then sighed. "We grow up admiring them, yearning for them. But it's not so simple. The Weyrs are just part of the problem, not the solution. Or they could be the solution if they weren't so hidebound!"

"But that's why they need us, you know."

"Yes, but..."

"No buts, young Menolly. We are what we are; the force that brings new ideas to the dark corners of the world--and there are dark corners everywhere, even here in the Hall. Don't you think the Weyrs have changed? Shells, they've changed immensely in less than a man's lifetime."

"A man's lifetime," she repeated pointedly.

"Yes. And a woman's. Don't pick bones with me, m'girl; I'm not the problem you're fighting." He leaned across to top off her wineglass, although she had only had a few sips.

"I can tell you exactly how many old men looked past me to Talmor, every time I offered to share the news with a Hold or a Steading."

"I know you can." He regarded her steadily. "It's not going to change overnight."

"But there are so few, besides me!" she wailed. "I thought maybe we'd have some more girls as apprentices by now, but..."

"Not for lack of trying. Have patience, Menolly. They need to see you, to see that it's not a dishonorable path for their daughters. They need to know that there are other ways. That knowledge doesn't come easy."

She drank wine. Beauty twined sinuously around her neck and walked down the arm of the chair to reach across and stroke her head against Robinton's hand. He curved around to stroke her, to press fingers against the soft firelizard skin; Beauty's eyes lidded and she crooned. Zair, rather than crying out in jealousy, walked across Robinton's lap to touch his head to Beauty's.

"She's happy to be here again," Menolly mused. "I love it here. I love the people. I love--" she choked to a halt and took another sip of wine. 

"You'll always have a place here, m'dear. You aren't condemned to journey among people who don't accept you." He watched her with gentle concern. It seemed that tears were near the surface--and no wonder, after months on the road doing a very difficult job. She might not have the resilience that she needed to be a symbol, the harbinger of change that Pern so desperately needed. "Remember, there are many Masters of our craft who never leave our halls. We need people here as well as out there. And you can write songs here."

"But--I write about things. Things I've seen, or experienced. If all I know is within the walls of this Hall, what do I have to write about?" Her forehead wrinkled. "I'm just tired, Master. I need a good night's sleep."

"You'll have that, and more. I'd like you to teach gitar in another tenday, but the new apprentices won't be here for a few days. You have time to get settled." He leaned forward to rest his hand on top of hers. "It'll do the boys good to have a woman teaching them. Get them looking at the world in a new light. And Menolly--we have two girls. Jaxom sent a young girl from Ruatha; she'd been Searched, but not chosen, and she can sing like a flock of birds, he says."

The eagerness he had hoped to see in her face bloomed slowly, as she thought about what he had just said. "Another girl in the Harper Hall, as a musician?"

"Two of them! The second was a runnerbeast herder; she's on her way here from the east. Lived with the beasts all her life, but she can drum and hold a tune like a Harper born, and she's written songs. Such beautiful songs, Menolly. I'd sing one for you right now but I can see you're soon for your bed. Enough." He took the wine glass from her limp hand.

"Sorry," she murmured. "I wanted to stay up for hours, talking to you."

"We'll have time for that as well. For now, good night." He stood and held out his hands to help her up. She rose out of the chair smiling, and stepped forward into his embrace. He let his face fall into her cloud of dark curls and sent a silent prayer toward the sky, that she might find teaching easy, and rewarding. That she might make new friends and find new alliances. That she might find the road ahead less strenuous than she feared. 

"Good night, Master." She released him, grinned, and yawned hugely. "I'm for bed."

"I'll see you on the morrow, m'dear. Until then. Dream well, young Menolly."


End file.
